


White Noise

by adaline_author



Series: White Noise Series | Criminal Minds [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Crime, Death, Elle - Freeform, Emily - Freeform, F/M, Family, Gideon - Freeform, Hotch - Freeform, JJ - Freeform, Love, Morgan - Freeform, Reid, Rossi - Freeform, Violence, caroline - Freeform, criminalminds - Freeform, derek - Freeform, garcia - Freeform, life - Freeform, prentiss - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adaline_author/pseuds/adaline_author
Summary: **previously on Wattpad on @voidIydia 's profile**❝When I see you, it's like the whole world turns into white noise, and it's just you standing there -- somehow, keeping me here.❞In which Caroline Lucas has dedicated her whole life to catching the monsters in this world --psychopaths, rapists and murderers -- in hopes of fixing something that is broken inside of her.Until she meets him and then everything begins to change.Criminal Minds || seasons 1, 2 and 3© adaline_author





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> This book can also be found on Wattpad under my other profile name (voidIydia)! There you can see my other works and ideas!

[0:00 - The Beginning]

She sat in the darkness, clutching the sides of her stomach like they were on fire. The angry, long slashes of hot, fire-filled fingertips caressing her sides that made her stomach churn. Her body was screaming her to move, to fight, to run. But she couldn't, her body was paralyzed with fear. She shuddered and started to chew the inside of her cheek until she felt the metallic taste of blood on her tongue. It made her feel real, even alive, when she tasted her own blood, proving to herself that she was still a tangible human being. She can bleed, she can feel, she still existed.  
He can't take that away from her, no matter what he did to her.   
She could hear his voice in her ear, whispering her name as his hands explored places on her body where they were unwanted. She couldn't scream for help, not with him pointing a gun at their heads in the other room. She couldn't, or he would kill them. They were all she had, she wouldn't lose them. Not to him.   
She felt the sharp end of a knife carve into her side and he chuckled, pleased at her whimpers of pain she couldn't stop from coming out of her mouth.   
"You're mine now." He muttered as his sweaty, dirty hand clamped down on her jaw, preventing her from screaming as he started his torture. She felt his hot, disgusting breath steam in her face, making her eyes water. His rancid breath wanted to make her throw up but she had nothing in her stomach to give up. "Don't you ever forget that."  
Then, the sound of someone knocking at her door shook Caroline out of her memory. She opened her eyes drowsily, glancing around the room warily.   
She was still in her apartment, in her warm, safe bed. It was just a memory.   
Sherbet, her white toy poodle, hopped onto her bed and crawled his way into her lap, resting himself right in between her criss-crossed legs as he barked at the front door, acting as her ferocious protector like he always does.   
"Thanks, Sherbie." The girl told her dog lovingly, petting his white curls gently as he yapped. "I don't know what I would do without you, buddy."  
Caroline ran her fingers through her light blonde curls, trying to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself. It's almost been six years since He had happened, and each time she had a flashback, it felt like yesterday. There was no escape, no way out. She was doomed to relive the worst moment of her life over and over again. She had tried everything from therapy to changing her name to get rid of that horrible, awful feeling that she'd never be whole again, and nothing ever worked.   
Another loud knock at the door caused Sherbet to start growling, barring his small canines at the door.   
"Down boy." Caroline told her precious pup, trying to calm him down. She picked him up as she turned to the door and hollered, "I'm coming, I'm coming! Ease up on the door!"  
"Come on, blondie!" She heard Derek Morgan's voice call through the door. "We have a case, and you haven't been answering your phone."  
She frowned as she reached over and checked the messages on her phone.   
"Shit." She muttered as she scrolled through the six messages Derek left her and the five from Hotch in her voicemail.   
She hopped off her bed and her bare feet padded on the wooden floor to her door, unbolting it from the wall and unlocking it before she opened the door. A tall, muscular African American man with closely-cropped black hair and bushy eyebrows set over determined, hard eyes stood outside the door. Given the small sweat that clung to his temples and his slightly-ragged breathing, Caroline concluded that he had ran all the way here from wherever the hell he's been, so whatever he had tried to contact her about had to be urgent.   
"Derek, what the hell is going on?" She asked him as Sherbet wiggled around in her arms. Once he realized it was Derek at the door, Sherbet immediately went back into his normal mood of ass-kissing. Especially to Derek.   
"Sherbie!" He said, taking the wiggling dog from her arms. Sherbet's long pink tongue licked his face repeatedly, excited for a new face. "Who's your favorite BAU agent, huh? Who is it, boy?"  
"Still Garcia, especially since last Christmas."  
"Well, that's only because she feeds him cookies every time she sees him. And she's not an agent, she's a technical analyst." Caroline snorted. "Oh, whatever. Talk to me, Morgan, what do we got?"  
Her fellow agent set her dog down on the floor and the sound of his paws paddling against the wooden floor to the tile kitchen floor scraped across the room. Derek smiled at her as he came in her apartment and closed the door behind him.   
"A couple of missing women in Seattle. You're needed in the vans."  
"Vans? What about the jet?"  
"The jet comes later, Care. Right now, we have to pick up some old friends first."  
Caroline narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "The BAU doesn't have any old friends."  
Derek chuckled. "I guess you wouldn't consider him a friend in this case. Gideon is coming back."  
Caroline stopped in the middle of putting her jacket on as her mouth dropped open. "Gideon? The Gideon?"  
"In the flesh. We have to convince him to come then board the jet. And to do that, we need your beautiful little profiler mind to do so."  
"Why me?"  
He glanced over at the pictures setting on her kitchen counter, his eyes roaming them. He passed the picture of Caroline and Derek standing with the rest of the BAU team at FBI headquarters, all of them profession, and a couple family photos before heading straight to the one of her with a tall, lanky boy with thin, slicked-back shoulder-length brown hair.   
She remembered that picture. In a rare moment, Garcia had managed to smuggle a camera in the FBI and taken that photo of them, Caroline at her desk, laughing, and the boy bent down over her, seemingly trying to explain something.   
Derek smiled and gingerly picked up the picture. He gently tapped on the picture of the smiling boy in the picture. "Because to get Gideon back, Reid needs to talk to him. And no one can get through to Reid like you can."   
Caroline sighed and took the framed photo from Derek's hands, brushing her fingertips against the smooth oak frame as she stared at the people in the picture. They looked happy, and that was one of the reason she kept it. It was one of the only pictures she had that actually had her smiling for real, and nothing fake like she usually had to keep up for appearances. The rare time she she felt something other than nothing.   
She tried to keep her face calm and impartial but she could feel her emotions slipping through the cracks.   
"I highly doubt he will care what I have to say." She whispered, setting the picture back down on the counter delicately.   
"Care, look, whatever happened between the two of you last year—"  
"Nothing happened!" She snapped at him, flipping her blonde curls behind her, agitated.   
"Okay, okay, nothing happened." He told her complacently, studying her face carefully. She could tell he was trying to profile her mood, but that wasn't his job, it was hers. One of the perks of being a behavior expert is not only being able to read the signs but knowing when and how to control them. "You two have been friends since you joined the BAU last year. Whatever did or did not happen, you can't let it effect the job, kid. We need you."  
Caroline straightened her back and took quiet, slow breaths, trying to keep up a calm facade. If she talks to Reid, fine. She can handle that. She's been through much worse situations than that. She can handle anything at this point.   
What happened between them was a mistake and it wasn't going to happen again. It couldn't happen again.   
"Okay." She replied, grabbing her go-bag that she kept stashed in the corner of the room while she slipped on her heels. "I'm in."  
Derek grinned and ruffled her blonde hair as she walked out in the hallway while keeping Sherbet from running out of the apartment. She looked up at him and glared, smoothing back her hair as they walked down the hallway.   
"I knew you would do the right thing, kid. Let's go get the rest of our team."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"No, no, Haley, don't worry." Caroline heard Hotch say into his phone as she walked alongside him through the university halls. "I'll be careful, and I will be back soon to help pick out baby names, okay?"  
The young profiler looked up at her boss and frowned. "Why are you even here, Hotch? You have a baby on the way. Morgan and I can handle this."  
Derek nodded beside her. "Kid's got a point."  
Caroline has known Aaron Hotchner since he worked a case on her family six years ago. She's known his wife, Haley, even longer given her mother and her used to work together. He was about 6' 1" with a stocky build, dark hair and an unexpressive face that was almost like a statue's if he tried hard enough. The man was a workaholic and he was good at what he does. But it's Caroline's job to make sure he comes out alive, per Haley's instructions. And he was the reason she became a profiler in the first place, so she did owe him.   
Hotch glanced back at the blond-haired girl and shook his head. "It'll be fine. I'm just trying to talk Haley out of the name 'Gideon' for our child."  
Caroline heard Derek snort and she promptly reached beside her and whacked him in the shoulder. Hard.   
"Damn, Care. You got an arm." He rubbed his shoulder lightly to emphasize his point.   
"That's my godson you're talking about." She pointed out. She looked over at Hotch and told him, "Whatever you guys decide will be fine, I'm sure. But Haley is the one with the morning sickness and back pain. Maybe you should listen to her."  
Her boss chuckled. "Of course you would take her side. It's why she made you the godmother of our child."  
"Don't lie, I know you wanted me to be as well."  
"Yeah, yeah." Hotch told her before returning to his phone. "I have to go, Haley. I love you. Bye."  
He shut his phone off and slipped it in his coat pocket. "Tell me what we've got, guys."  
Caroline and Derek immediately opened the case files that they had been given earlier in the day, filing through countless police reports and glossy crime scene photos.   
"They're calling him the Seattle Strangler." She informed them as she glanced through a prior police report. "4 victims in 4 months. He keeps them alive for 7 days before disposing the bodies."  
Derek pulled out a crime scene photo of a woman's body, the unsub's second victim. She was lying with her back flat on the ground and her face covered in leaves and dirt from being dragged into the woods. He pointed to the long wooden object sticking out from her neck, connected to some belt wrapped around her throat. Her cloudy, dead eyes were wide in fear.  
Caroline stared into the poor girl's eyes and imagined what it would be like to have your last moments on this Earth to be in fear, to know that no one was coming to save them.   
That was what she felt six years ago, and it was one of the most sickening, horrifying feelings a person could have. That is why she does what she does—to prevent another person, like her and the Seattle Strangler victims, from feeling what they had felt. To at least know that there is someone out there trying to save them. That there is some hope for the hell to eventually end.   
If she had hope back then, maybe she could've saved her family.   
"The handle serves as a crank, allowing him to control the rate of suffocation." Derek explained, pointing to the long wooden shaft at the base of her throat.   
"To prolong it?" Caroline asked him, frowning as she examined the photo.   
"More like to enjoy it, given the time frame."  
"Well, Seattle's hit a wall. Physical evidence is basically nonexistent on the victims and the crime scenes." She continued to explain from the police report. "There are currently no tangible leads, and another girl is missing."   
"Okay, team." Hotch said as they approached Gideon's office. "Caroline, Reid said he's given Gideon the case file yet?"  
She opened her phone and checked her messages. There was a text from Reid on the screen for earlier, which read: Got it.   
She glanced up and nodded to Hotch. He sighed and prepared the case file with Derek as she slipped her phone bag in her bag.   
She hadn't seen Reid in six weeks, not since he decided to stay close to Gideon after the bombing. Their first contact had been this morning, and neither of them dared mentioned what happened six months prior to that. It was the real reason Spencer Reid had decided to stay away from HQ for six months, and it was because of her.   
When Hotch opened the office door, Caroline shook out of it. She had a task at hand, she reminded herself, and everything prior to that is non-sequential. The victims were her top concern.   
"Look, I'll look the case file over, and send my thoughts back to you ASAP." She heard a man's voice say the moment the door opened.   
"Not necessary." Hotch replied as he entered the office, with Caroline and Derek following suit. "You'll be with us in Seattle ASAP."  
As she stepped into the office, she was instantly struck with the strong smell of Benzaldehyde and lignin, the common ingredients found in antique books. The strong almond-like scent filled her nose as she glanced around the small office.   
Books lined the walls everywhere. She was able to recognize some of her favorite authors on the shelves, like Sir Author Conan Doyle, John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut, but most were foreign authors or people she had never heard of. In the back of the office, there was a small oak desk were a middle-aged man dressed in a striped shirt under a black tweed jacket and pants stood. He had on thin, rectangular glasses over his dark, wrinkled eyes and black hair peppered with silver.   
Beside him was a tall, lanky boy with smoothed back brown hair. He had looked up the moment they had walked in and his eyes immediately focused on her. Her heart thudded in her chest erratically, but she kept herself calm and composed.   
Reid hadn't changed much since she last saw him. His hair had grown a bit longer, but his face still retained some of its boyish features. She met his gaze, despite the hard thumping in her chest, and he gave her a small smile.   
Relief washed over her. It was sign for her, to let her know that he wasn't mad at her. That what happened six months ago didn't matter. He was still her friend, and that was what mattered most.   
She gave him a small, delicately smile back before tuning back into the situation at hand.   
The man glanced up the moment the group of them stepped into the office. He had the case files for the Seattle Strangler spread across his desk. He carefully took off his glasses as he approached the small group standing in the middle of the office.   
Derek held up a photo of a pretty, red-headed woman to the man. "This is 22-year-old Heather Woodland."  
"Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delayed virus attached." Hotch explained to him. "The killer's virus wiped her hard drive and left this on the screen." He handed the man the crime scene photo of Heather's computer.   
He glanced at it before looking up at the rest of them, frowning.   
"'For Heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself'." The man read off the paper aloud in a deep, controlled voice.   
"He never keeps them more than seven days." Caroline told him. "Which means we have fewer than 36 hours to find her." The man turned around and stared at her, waiting for her to continue.   
"They want you back in the field, Gideon. Are you ready?"  
"Looks like medical leave is over, boss." Reid told him, grinning.   
"They sure they want me?" He asked them.   
Hotch chuckled. "The order came from the director himself."  
"Well then." Gideon smiled at them, making her feel a bit nervous. "We better get started."


End file.
